


can't figure out what from

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Primeval
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6740776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the dinosaurs, portals in time, and melodramatic runaway scientists, Claudia has absolutely no time for a romantic relationship, and no intention of getting into one, either.</p><p>This is not a story about that changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't figure out what from

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to lukadreaming and fredbassett for assuring me I had not lost my marbles, and particularly to fredbassett for giving my portrayal of Lyle her seal of approval. ;)

_Every man I meet wants to protect me. I **can't figure out what from**._

_― Mae West_

 

***

 

Claudia Brown never got a first impression of Jon Lyle; she was too busy appreciating Captain Ryan's competence and Professor Cutter's good looks and air of keen enquiry. If she asked herself later she might have recalled a darker, craftier figure in the background, someone with a cheeky, insinuating smile - but she wasn't paying attention at the time. She was still gauging whether Cutter's mild obsession with his wife was dogged loyalty that would melt away when it became apparent that she was mad as a hatter, or whether he was still genuinely in love with her. There was probably competition from Stephen's despairing crush, but Claudia thought Nick hadn't noticed a thing. He'd definitely noticed her, though - a kiss had seen to that - and Claudia thought there was an extra sparkle in his eyes when he looked at her.

 

The soldiers weren't really her problem so much as they were Lester's and Ryan's. She was just there to keep the civilian team from getting into too much trouble and act as Lester's dogsbody, and that, she told her flatmates as she tumbled through the door exhausted every night, was quite enough. They were all quite excited by her new top-secret job, and Amy had an unashamed Thing for men in uniform, but Claudia found it very easy to tell them that the job was mostly boring, and that she didn't have very much to do with the soldiers. Both of these things were true, most of the time. She learnt the men's names, and she exchanged the occasional pleasantry, but she didn't talk to them and they didn't talk to her. She had plenty to keep her occupied.

 

And she never heard Lyle tell Ryan that she was a bit of all right to look at, but pretty stuck up.

 

***

 

Two months in and a sort of camaraderie had developed between the civilian team and the soldiers who followed them around, pulled them out of trouble and swore at them; the kind of camaraderie that meant a lot of time spent in the pub or watching movies on Connor's laptop in the back of the car, driving down from whichever far-flung anomaly had occupied them this time. Claudia thought it was a positive sign, and labelled it team-building. Lester complained that they ran up enormous bar bills and put them on expenses whenever they'd had a bad day, but the second time he'd done that Claudia had explained to him exactly what a bad day meant and the bar bills had mysteriously been paid. Claudia didn't think they could push their luck too far, though, and had taken Ryan and Stephen aside to work out a plan with them. They'd both been helpful, and they'd both invited her to join them.

 

"No," Claudia said, and smiled. "I've got work to finish, I'm afraid." She nodded at the glowing screen of her work computer. She didn't say that she thought it would be pushing her luck, coming along; they all needed somewhere to vent. And in any case, she was avoiding social situations Nick was participating in. He'd been monumentally angry with her when Helen had been taken in, and while she'd been expecting a row and some shouting, he'd given her a bitter, sullen silent treatment that left her irritated and grateful they'd never had a relationship, only a work flirtation. His behaviour today had been particularly frustrating, not even frosty but still wary and resentful, and Claudia had done her best to bypass him. She found Ryan, Stephen and Abby more reasonable, anyway - and certainly far more competent to take the lead in the field. Cutter was reckless, especially if he thought doing something stupid might lead him to Helen, and Connor, for all his gifts, was hapless.

 

Ryan nodded shortly and looked at his feet. Stephen frowned. "If this is about Nick..."

 

"It isn't," Claudia lied, tucking a hank of soft brown hair behind her ear. "I have six forms to fill out and a report to get off to Lester. The forms were due yesterday, and Lester wants the report on his desk tomorrow morning."

 

Stephen's frown deepened, lending a seriousness to his handsome face. Not for the first time, Claudia regretted that Stephen's taste appeared to run exclusively to blondes. "He's a slavedriver."

 

"He gets results," Claudia pointed out. She was all too aware of the steps that Lester had taken to ensure his political control of the ARC, and the people who might have got hold of it otherwise - and for all Lester's faults, his integrity was unquestioned. She shook her head. "No. Off you go, have a lovely time, and captain - please don't forget about last week's expenses report."

 

"It'll be on your desk by close of play tomorrow, Miss Brown," Ryan promised. He folded his arms. "It's basically the same as the last one I gave you."

 

"We didn't have to buy in tropical fruit two weeks running," Claudia said. She re-ran the previous fortnight in her head quickly. There'd been a lot of late nights and very early mornings, she hadn't slept well - "At least. Did we?"

 

"No," Stephen said authoritatively - as he should be able to, given that he and Abby had been advising on the correct animal bait. "It was fish the week before."

 

"Right, yes," Claudia said, relieved she wasn't losing her marbles. "Anyway." She made a shooing motion. "Get out of my office, I have work to do."

 

The two men trooped out. Claudia took a seat in her quiet, empty office in a quiet, empty building, and rather regretted letting them go. She had her own space for the first time - it wouldn't be exclusively hers soon, but Lester's PA hadn't been hired yet, so there was a spare desk - and it made her uneasy. Especially now that she knew the kinds of things that might lurk in the shadows.

 

Claudia, practical by nature, checked her bottom drawer for the large spanner she'd brought in from home, then drew a deep breath and made a start on her work.

 

Less than five minutes later, somebody cleared their throat and Claudia jumped a mile.

 

"Fuck!"

 

Whoever it was laughed, and Claudia bent half double over her desk trying to calm her racing heart and breath before straightening up and glowering at her visitor.

 

"I'm glad you think that was funny, lieutenant," she said. "Ever heard of a thing called knocking?"

 

Lyle shrugged and leant against the doorjamb. Dressed in jeans and a brown bomber jacket, he looked younger and marginally less alarming; his usual air of mischief was in full evidence. "Sorry, Miss Brown. I thought you'd hear me."

 

"You all walk like cats," Claudia complained. "Even Finn, and he can't take a step without putting his foot in it. I ought to get the lot of you bells."

 

Lyle grinned. "I'd like to hear you sell that one to Lester."

 

"I could, believe you me." Claudia scribbled a note on some rough paper and typed the matching words into the electronic form. "Aren't you going to the pub?"

 

"Yeah. Aren't you?"

 

"No," Claudia said. "Didn't Ryan tell you?"

 

"Haven't seen him since he got out of the showers. You're not still working?"

 

"I am," Claudia said, womanfully clamping down on the desire to add that she didn't know what business it was of his. It wasn't as if they were friends. "I have forms left over from your antics with that stone circle in Yorkshire."

 

Lyle frowned. It made him look as if he actually cared, though Claudia would be very surprised to learn he did. "I thought the boss got stuck with all our high-level paperwork."

 

"Everything that doesn't go directly to the MoD is written by me, and goes to Lester." Claudia sat back in her chair and stretched, then yanked her top back down when she realised Lyle's eyes had instinctively followed the movement of the fabric as it rode up. "So yes, he does some, but then I more or less have to duplicate what he's written and write more on top of that. So thank you for not actually calling in air support, because if you'd done that I wouldn't have six forms, I'd have thirty. And worse, I'd have to deal with the RAF."

 

Lyle's mouth twitched. "Can't have that."

 

"Exactly," Claudia said. "So yes. I'm working. Have a nice time at the pub, Lyle."

 

"Thanks, miss," Lyle said, and then he was gone.

           

Claudia reapplied herself to her paperwork.

 

***

 

Next time she was working late while the others went to the pub, Lyle appeared in her office again. This time he actually knocked, and he was carrying a coffee mug from the poky little kitchen two floors down. Claudia thought it belonged to Dennis, somebody's gossipy PA whose powers over the thermostat were a) unparalleled and b) generally used for evil, but she was so surprised by the gesture that she couldn't bring herself to ask why he hadn't brought the mug labelled with her name and a lot of little multicoloured hieroglyphics. It would have been unnecessarily picky.

 

"Thank you," she said, staring at the mug as it was set down in front of her. "What have I done to deserve this?"

 

"I reckon at least two of those forms the other day were entirely my fault," Lyle said, and shrugged. "If you'd come to the pub I'd have bought you a drink, but you never do come, do you?"

 

"No," Claudia conceded, and took a careful sip of the coffee. It was scalding, but she was sure there was something else, behind the heat and the caffeine hit and the faint burnt savour coffee from that pot always had. "What's in this?"

 

"Coffee."

 

Claudia raised her eyebrows. "Besides coffee."

 

Lyle grinned. "Nothing much. Not enough to get you drunk."

 

Claudia took another sip, and decided this was probably true. "Well, thank you."

 

"You're welcome," Lyle said. "You know, Miss Brown, you're not Lester - nobody's going to feel awkward if you come to the pub. They'd like it."

 

Claudia thought about how to respond to this for a moment. "That means a lot," she said finally, slowly. "But I really do have work to do. And I think Ni - Cutter - would prefer it if I didn't turn up. He has yet to believe that Lester makes the decisions, not me."

 

It was almost natural not to call him by his first name now. Nobody else ever had done.

 

"He always asks Abby if you're coming."

 

Claudia rolled her eyes. Typical bloody Cutter; the cluelessness in some very relevant areas had long ago ceased to be endearing. "Abby and I don't talk nearly as much as he thinks we do, you know, he'd be better off asking Stephen."

 

"Given up on the good professor, then?"

 

Claudia sat back in her chair and stared up at him, half-incredulous. "These are some very personal questions, Lyle. But since you ask, I've never been interested in people whose first line of defence is a fit of the sulks, and I'm not about to start now."

 

Lyle grinned. "I'll make a note, ma'am."

 

"Have a nice evening," Claudia said automatically, and then, struck by something, looked up and called after him as he headed out of the door: "And if you've just won a lot of money on that bet, lieutenant, I want my cut!"

 

A lazily raised hand was her only answer at the time, but the next morning there was an envelope full of cash on her desk, sealed with tape and labelled with _Claudia Brown, 50%_ in an unfamiliar deplorable scrawl. Claudia laughed until she was nearly sick, and bought herself a new pair of shoes on the proceeds.

 

***

 

She wore her new boots - smart, practical flats with excellent support, weatherproofed and warm from a reputable brand; like most young professional women in London, Claudia knew how to work the sales even if she seldom bought exciting clothes - to an appointment with Ryan. It had become painfully clear that Stephen's skills with anything that could be aimed and Abby's grasp of the proper use of a tranquilliser rifle were inadequate to the situation the team were faced with, and Ryan had insisted that the team acquire some basic weapons competency. Cutter had dug his heels in and pitched a fit about killing being an inappropriate response to the creatures, but Ryan had proven immovable. Claudia herself had not been hugely enthusiastic - she'd always preferred pony club to clay pigeon shooting as a little girl - but she knew there was nothing to be done.

 

When she arrived at the range she'd been sent to, having flashed her ID to get past an alarming range of guards, she found Lyle, not Ryan. "Hello," she said, surprised. "Have I had a change of instructor?"

 

"Cutter's being a pain in the arse," Lyle said.

 

"Ah, so it's a day ending in y, is it?" Claudia sighed. "What's he done? Is he in hospital?"

 

"No, but Ryan’s doing his weapons training, and the bugger’s throwing a tantrum.”

 

Claudia rolled her eyes very hard. She sometimes thought that Ryan’s infamous, but effective, method for cancelling out Cutter tantrums had a limited lifespan, and should be repeated at regular intervals. Claudia was apprehensive about firing a gun, but she would have been the first to volunteer to learn how to administer a suitable punch.

 

“Exactly, miss. So yes, I’m going to teach you how not to shoot your own foot off.”

 

“Let me guess,” Claudia said. “Lesson one: don’t shoot your own foot off?”

 

“No,” Lyle said, and passed her a handgun. “Lesson one: never point that at anything you aren’t prepared to kill.”

 

Claudia took a deep breath. “Right,” she said.

 

“Let’s go.”  


 

Lyle was an exacting teacher; Claudia wasn’t actually surprised by that. He was prepared to joke and tease her, and for her to retort, but he had deceptively high expectations, and when she met them he would grin and raise them. She wasn’t hugely accurate, not yet, but Lyle assured her she was doing very well under the circumstances, and she had quickly learnt to fire without flinching, and to absorb the recoil. She hit the target whenever she was asked to, anyway, even if it was nowhere near anything resembling the bullseye.

 

“Dinosaurs are bigger targets than this,” Lyle observed, leaning in close and peering over her shoulder. “But they also move.” He reached forward and adjusted her grip slightly.

 

“How inconsiderate of them,” Claudia said lightly. Her breath kept catching, and she wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she was firing a gun, or the equally indisputable fact that Lyle had pressed himself up against her back to see what she was doing, his hands on her shoulders, hips and waist to adjust her stance respectful, never lingering beyond the necessary, but large and warm and calloused.

 

“They are fucking inconsiderate,” Lyle said. Unlike the rest of the soldiers, he had given up on looking or acting apologetic when he swore in front of her; she had repeatedly told everyone from Ryan down to Fizz that she was a big girl and could handle four-letter words in her general vicinity, but some kind of Cheltenham Lady veneer seemed to cling to her, preventing them from actually listening to what she’d said. Except for Lyle, who cursed freely, and never seemed surprised when she did too.

 

Then again, Claudia had heard a thing or two about Lyle from other sources, since he was one of the easiest of her colleagues to talk about, neither inexplicable – like Abby the zookeeper – nor intimidatingly senior – like Lester.  She thought it very possible that he’d known enough Cheltenham Ladies (in a purely Biblical sense) to learn that girls’ boarding schools instilled a robust, if not actually vicious, attitude to life. Claudia had been particularly amused to hear that the woman who’d been Head Girl when Claudia was a Lower Fourth had expelled him from her house, sans trousers, which were promptly expelled from a second-floor window, still smouldering from the chef’s blowtorch that had been applied to them. She wasn’t sure she ought to tease him about that, but it was certainly very funny.

 

“Shit,” Claudia said, and self-consciously raised her elbow, which had dropped too far on her last attempted shot.

 

“Well spotted,” Lyle said, reaching forward again to adjust her arms slightly, since she’d overcorrected. “I was about to shout at you for that.”

 

“Thank you for refraining,” Claudia said. “I need that eardrum.”

 

Lyle snorted, and his head turned slightly; so close to her face, she could feel his breath on her cheek, and she almost shivered. “You’d manage, Miss Brown.”

 

“I really wish you would call me Claudia,” Claudia said irritably. “I can understand why Kermit and Finn won’t, and I can live with Captain Ryan’s universal allergy to first names –”

 

“Doesn’t he _ever_ call Lester by his first name?” Lyle demanded, sounding amused.

 

“You’d know better than I would! Lester always calls him Ryan. At least, where I can hear.”

 

“Ryan gets uptight about his relationships. Turns into an oyster.”

 

“Well, good for him, it’s good to keep these things out of the office,” Claudia said primly, and ruined the effect by adding: “Unlike Stephen, Abby and Connor – _what_ is going on there?”

 

 “Fucked if I know, Miss –”

 

“Claudia!”

 

“-fine, Claudia. I was about to ask you. We all thought Hart was gone on Cutter.” Lyle squinted down the line of her arm, and dropped his hands to her waist, turning her slightly. “Face forward, don’t twist just because you’re talking to me.”

 

“Oops. Well, I don’t have a clue.” Claudia fired again, and was surprised to see it was her most accurate shot yet; startling, as her arms were getting very tired. “I just hope it doesn’t blow up in everyone’s face, but I think Connor’s too sweet and Abby’s too sensible for that, and Cutter, of course, hasn’t noticed that anything’s changed.”

 

“What about Hart?” One of Lyle’s hands was resting lightly on her shoulder, the other still on her waist.

 

“Too used to sublimating,” Claudia said, and laughed helplessly when Lyle sniggered, feeling the vibration through her back. “Not like that!”

 

“You said it, not me,” Lyle pointed out, sweet reason itself, and Claudia trod very hard on his foot and ground her heel into his toe. “Ow,” Lyle added, deadpan. “I’m wearing steel-capped boots.”

 

Claudia kicked his shin instead.

 

He snorted. “I deserved that.”

 

“No arguments here,” Claudia said tartly, but her hands were shaking.

 

“Okay,” Lyle said, one hand on her wrist, warm and steady and rough with callouses. “That’s enough for the moment. I think you’re going to be good at this, Claudia.”

 

“Oh,” Claudia said, rather lost for words. “That’s good.” It came out more uncertain than she liked, especially in front of Lyle, who was always so confident – but he just smiled at her.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s good.”

 

“I’ll get better with practice,” she said, and bit off _I suppose_ before it could come out of her mouth. She looked down at her hands, still trembling with effort, and couldn’t bite back her laugh.

 

Lyle raised his eyebrows at her.

 

“I was just thinking of my family,” Claudia said, thinking of the sprawling family tree in her father’s study, as liberally sprinkled with gentleman adventurers as it was lawyers and scholars, and the kindness with which her mother had always told her she was sweet. “They’d be… well, they’d be quite surprised.”

 

Lyle smirked, and clapped her on the back. “Probably not as surprised as I am, Claudia.”

 

“Oi!” Claudia said instinctively, her second laugh startled from her, and smacked him on the arm.

 

He just laughed back at her.

 

***

 

            Claudia knew she was good with policemen, passable with paramedics, and increasingly skilled at fobbing off the press – particularly national news, who were typically less tenacious than regional reporters who had a better grasp of the local normal - but she thought she really came into her own when she was dealing with the Highways Agency. It was a small thing, but a very essential one, considering the project’s necessarily liberal approach to speed limits, and the importance of sealing off roads that would lead the general public straight to, or straight past, anomalies. She had quickly learnt the right levers to pull and the right jargon to use, and now she spoke fluent Traffic Policeman.

 

            It was coming in particularly handy today. Claudia sat in the front seat of one of the anomaly project’s cars and watched the soldiers chase something that resembled nothing so much as a small, scaled kangaroo across the road. It was the fifth little kangaroo they had located, which would have been comforting, if Stephen hadn’t been convinced that at least two more were loose. They had evidently not been tempted by the – now rather ragged – annuals on the roundabout, where the sight of their companions feeding had caused a nervous learner driver to plough onto the roundabout, accidentally killing a kangaroo, damaging a sign that said CLEETON MAGNA WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS and flipping their car onto its roof. The learner driver and his teacher had been slightly concussed. When they arrived at the scene, Claudia had wondered aloud if all her Christmases had come at once, and devoted the next twenty minutes of her time to persuading everyone that a road traffic accident had taken place, including the two drivers, who were quickly brought to believe that a bang on the head had led them to hallucinate small purple wallabies. Claudia would have said they were maroon herself, and she wasn’t sure of the exact relationship between wallabies and kangaroos, but she wasn’t going to argue with a perfectly good story somebody else had embellished for her.

 

            Lyle tripped over the sign that welcomed careful drivers, and went face first into a flowerbed on top of a struggling kangaroo. Claudia turned a laugh into a sneeze.

 

            “Sorry about that, Sophie,” she said apologetically to the woman on the line with her, who was growing increasingly shrill at the prospect of disruption to roundabouts in the further reaches of Surrey. “It’s – the fumes are a bit much, really.”

 

            Sophie was instantly distracted by health and safety concerns. Claudia returned carefully pitched soothing-but-not-too-soothing responses to her questions, and watched as Abby and Stephen expertly extracted the kangaroo and Ditzy helped Lyle up. Lyle wobbled on that ankle when he set his foot down, and Claudia could see him curse; she caught sight of her own frown in the rear view mirror, and almost started to smooth it out before realising it would look stranger if she wasn’t bothered by one of her colleagues injuring themselves.

 

            And when had that started being a concern, anyway?

 

            She kept feeding Sophie the answers the other woman wanted to hear, pulling the threads of her story into a coherent, simple weft as Lyle conducted a brief argument with Ditzy, then limped over to the car and opened the other front door. Claudia held out an imperative hand, and Lyle froze and waited patiently while she brought her call to a graceful close.

 

            “You’re bloody good at that,” Lyle said, straightforward and appreciative, as Claudia laid her phone down in her lap. He swung himself into the car. Claudia couldn’t help noticing that he mostly used his arms; they were noticeable arms.

 

            “Thanks. What did you do to your ankle?”

 

            “Went down on it funny,” Lyle said, with a grimace that was halfway to a pout. “I’ll walk it off, it’ll be fine.”

 

            “Is that what Ditzy said?” Claudia enquired, in tones of academic interest. If it had been a question of just walking it off – say in twenty minutes or half an hour of discomfort – Lyle wouldn’t have been limping when he reached the car.

 

            “Yep,” Lyle said.

 

            “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

 

            Lyle grinned and waggled his eyebrows, which Claudia took as an admission of untruthfulness.

 

            “I take it Kermit will be driving back.”

 

            “Yeah, probably best,” Lyle said. “Oh, Hart found the anomaly.”

 

            “Where?”

 

            “Round the back of a petrol station, two minutes away.”

 

            “Oh God,” Claudia said wearily, and reached for the door so she could get out and work a miracle. Petrol stations were busy places.

 

            Lyle caught her by the wrist, and she stopped, surprised as much as she was anything else. “It’s fine. The petrol station’s abandoned – fenced off and up for sale. Nobody’s noticed.”

 

            Claudia sank back into her seat and stared at her wrist as Lyle let go of it. “Well, good,” she said. “How many little kangaroos are we up to now?”

 

            “Six,” Lyle said.

 

            A purple blur landed heavily on the bonnet and leapt off again, leaving scuff marks Claudia wasn’t going to explain to Lester. A larger black-clad blur bowled after it, shaking the entire car. Claudia heaved a sigh and dropped her head into her hands, and Finn – the aforementioned black-clad blur – pounced on the kangaroo, an enterprise which would have been less successful and less painful if Blade hadn’t tried to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. The entire team descended on the cursing pair, and in the ensuing crush, Abby was kicked in the thigh, Connor lost his hat, and the kangaroo was forcibly swathed in several metres’ worth of strong netting, uttering strange, squealing cries the entire time.

 

            “Oh my God,” Claudia said into her hands, and bounced her head off the dashboard.

 

            “Make that seven,” Lyle said, almost crying with laughter.

 

            “I’m coming with you to the pub,” Claudia said, resting her forehead on the friendly, solid plastic of the dashboard. “None of you are safe to be let out on your own.”

 

 

 

            It was a chequered group that finally made their way to the Ship, the only pub in the vicinity which could be persuaded to host both anomaly project civilians and soldiers without making impolite advances towards the former – Connor had not recovered from the shock of being propositioned at the Dog and Duck, and the bartender had not recovered from the shock of Abby’s briskly brutal response – or tossing the latter out on their collective ear. While Lyle was still smirking, and Stephen, Connor and Cutter were having a moderately cheerful argument about the scaly purple kangaroos, Blade and Finn were distinctly sullen, and Ditzy unsympathetic. It was not surprising that Ryan had insisted on coming along to keep the peace, and was watching Finn and Blade very carefully. Blade at least cheered up when Abby challenged him to a darts game, but Finn’s nose looked painful, and it kept starting to bleed again at inopportune moments, which was putting a normally easygoing man into a temper. And, Claudia couldn’t help noticing, getting blood all over his sleeves. In the name of hygiene, she had bought him some tissues at a motorway services on the way home - which had stopped him dripping, but had not improved his mood.

 

            They mostly looked like they’d been in the wars, Claudia thought, hanging back and regarding her team with a critical eye. Connor looked as if he’d fallen into a bush and been forcibly removed, which he had been. Abby was limping from a bruise the size of a dinner plate on her thigh, there was still a distinct halt to Lyle’s footsteps, Finn was currently ordering rather nasally through the bloodstained tissue pressed to his face, and Blade had an impressive fat lip and a spreading bruise across one cheekbone. The barstaff were used to them by now, but even so, the blonde Australian who typically served them was giving the group a very sceptical look.

 

            Claudia sighed and smiled hopelessly. It could be worse.

 

            “Come on, Claudia,” Lyle said, slinging a friendly arm around her shoulders and dragging her towards the bar. “We’re all right, and you need a drink.”

 

            “Non-alcoholic,” Claudia said firmly, feeling his arm around her shoulders like a brand that didn’t fade when he dropped it, even though nobody was paying them a blind bit of attention, not even Ditzy, chief gossip. “I’m driving.”

 

            “Sure,” Lyle said easily, and proceeded to buy her a Coke; Claudia let this pass, and made a mental note to return the favour, which she got the chance to do half an hour later. She sat in the corner, nursing her drink, and listening to the team talking back and forth; Finn loosened up after a few minutes talking to the Australian girl, on whom Claudia could already tell he had a hopeful crush, and Blade calmed down as much as he ever did after beating Abby soundly at darts, so everyone relaxed a little.   


            It had been nice, Claudia thought a couple of hours later, as everyone got up to leave, and worth the fact that she’d now be up till midnight finishing off the paperwork she’d left undone. It was good for team cohesion.

 

            Lyle tripped over his dragging foot and caught himself on the doorjamb, eliciting several ripe curses and a lot of teasing about his alcohol consumption. He told Ryan and Ditzy to leave him alone – Blade and Finn were already gone – and Stephen and Cutter, hovering on the outskirts, shrugged and didn’t bother to offer after hearing Lyle shoot down his friends’ offers of help.

 

            Claudia waited.

 

            “Not you too,” Lyle said, grimacing, but there was no sting in his words. “For fuck’s sake, Claudia. It’s a twisted ankle and some uneven pavement, I don’t need my sodding hand holding.”

 

            “Want a lift?” Claudia said. “My car’s just down the road.”  


            Lyle paused, and then a corner of his mouth lifted. “I wouldn’t say no,” he admitted.

 

            Claudia drove him to the end of his road and dropped him off there, then turned her car for home. It was on the way, actually; as part of her duties she needed to be able to locate any member of the project at the drop of Lester’s hat, and she knew exactly where to find Lyle’s flat. It wasn’t his - he owned a flat in Hereford and was using a property that technically belonged to his family while he was in London. It was saving the MoD rent, and it was in a _very_ nice area; Claudia’s own flat, five minutes’ drive away but in a significantly shabbier part of the same area, cost her an absurd amount in rent. She parked her car in the residents’ parking spot she and her flatmates hoarded so jealously, and let herself quietly into her building.

 

            She could still feel the weight of Lyle’s arm over her shoulders, the warmth of his hand on her wrist, and it wasn’t, she thought, a bad thing. At least, so long as she didn’t get into a relationship with him.

 

            Not a proper one, anyway.

 

***

 

            Next time he bought her a drink they were walking back to her flat from a reception Lester had insisted she attend – “call it professional development, Claudia,” he’d said, looking down his nose at her despite the fact that she was the same height as him in her heels – and where Lyle had been acting as… muscle, Claudia supposed. Muscle in a very well-cut suit.

 

            Claudia had wondered if Lester was going to tell her why he felt the need to request accompaniment to a fairly straightforward event, or if she’d passed the implicit test he’d set, and had then laughed at herself internally. Of course not; at least, not tonight.

 

            But then, she hadn’t expected a car driven by Ryan to pick Lester up almost as soon as they left the reception, or Lyle to put a casual hand to her lower back and draw her smoothly down the street almost as if they had never been walking with Lester in the first place. Claudia had made no comment, beyond asking rather sarcastically if Lyle meant to walk her home, and if so, whether he’d made a note of her address.

 

            Lyle had just grinned, which Claudia had taken as an answer.

 

            He’d let go of her somewhere between Westminster and Victoria, and now he was leading her further into Chelsea, so far as Claudia knew, not too far from Pimlico and both their flats. He took a sudden, abrupt turn down a small street, towards the river, and she followed him until he held the door to a bar open for her.

 

            She gave him a fishy look, and stepped into the bar. It was fairly quiet for the time of night, full of groups of people talking rather than shouting, and it gleamed expensively, all polished wooden counter-tops, brass fittings and plush carpet. It was the kind of place where people ordered brandy and costly red wine, Claudia thought, and was grateful for her unusually smart outfit.

 

            She also wondered what the hell she was doing here, but no doubt Lyle would enlighten her at some point. If he felt like it. She didn’t feel unsafe, anyway.

 

            She chose a corner table, unbuttoning her trench coat and folding it to lay on the seat next to her, on top of her nicest handbag. Lyle returned, bringing a glass of something transparent and fizzing, and a glass of red wine. Claudia’s lips twitched, and Lyle smirked back at her, but said nothing.

 

            Claudia picked up her glass. “What’s this?”

 

            “Vodka tonic,” Lyle said. “I saw you were on water all night.”

 

            “It seemed sensible.” Claudia had been conscious of the… delicacy of the evening. There had been something very strange about it, something she wasn’t yet privy to, and Claudia was positive Lester hadn’t been the only one testing her.

 

            “It was,” Lyle said cheerfully. “Lester thought you did well. I could tell.”

 

            Claudia raised her eyebrows at her glass of vodka tonic and took a healthy gulp; it burned nicely, and made her just reckless enough to turn her sardonic look on Lyle. “Then you know more than I do.”

 

            “They don’t teach you to network at Sandhurst, but they do teach you how to listen.” Lyle sipped at his own drink.

 

            “So what’s this? A performance review? A debriefing?”

 

            “No, it’s a nice friendly drink between friends.” Lyle slouched in his chair, ruining the cut of his suit, but – Claudia conceded – he looked handsome with it, and deceptively relaxed. There was something distinct about the way he said the word _friends_ , too, that made something small and reckless in Claudia’s brain raise its head. “I thought you needed one.”

 

            Claudia remembered the nervous itch at the back of her neck that had kept her spine straight and her palms clammy all night, and decided she’d give him that one. “You weren’t wrong,” she allowed.

 

            Lyle’s mouth curled in a half smile, and they sat drinking in silence for a while.

 

            “You look nice in your suit,” Claudia said abruptly, halfway down her tonic, and grinned. “I could _almost_ think you’re nearly _civilised_.”

 

            Lyle smirked. “And that dress makes you look as pretty as you are. That colour suits you better than the pink you’re always wearing, and that neckline suits you better than collared shirts.”

 

            “Shame it’s not work appropriate,” Claudia retorted, but the flush on her cheeks didn’t feel unpleasant, and she liked the compliment. It was true she didn’t feel like the raw fast-streamer who’d bought all those corporate shirts and blush-pink tops any more, but it was equally true that she’d have to wait for the sales to tweak her wardrobe enough to look like the person she felt like now. Her dress worked, though; a series of tones from slate-grey to storm blue, the fabric winding each colour into the nubbly fabric, the dress itself plain cut with short sleeves, a square neckline, nipped-in waist and a pencil-cut skirt that fell just below the knee and had pockets neatly cut into the hips that couldn’t actually be used unless she wanted to ruin the line. Flattering, especially with heels and her hair pulled up, and Claudia hoped that she’d managed to avoid aging herself ten years by wearing a pair of pearlescent, spiky costume-jewellery earrings with it. It was a nice dress. She liked the way she looked in it.

 

            She liked the fact that Lyle clearly liked the way she looked in it, too. His eyes lingered on her, sharp and smart and appreciative.

 

            “All part of its charm,” Lyle said evenly, meeting her eyes again, still smirking.

 

            “Not unlike you,” Claudia jibed, and surprised a snort of laughter from him. She smiled, pleased, and nodded at his glass. “Drink up; I want to go home.”

 

           

             When they reached her door, they stood and watched each other for several moments.

 

            “You could come up,” Claudia said, feeling very bold.

 

            Lyle raised his eyebrows. “For coffee?”

 

            “In part.”

 

            “I hope you’re not looking for anything serious.”  


            Claudia laughed in his face.

 

            That earned her a smirk. “But will you still respect me in the morning?”

 

            “Will you still be able to work with me in the morning?” Claudia retorted. She knew the answer to that question, or she’d never have asked in the first place; but it was worth hearing aloud.

 

            “No problem,” Lyle said, a small glint of seriousness in his eyes for half a minute, but then it fled and was replaced by mischief and a certain welcome heat. “I hope your roommates are heavy sleepers.”

 

            “Amy isn’t,” Claudia said cheerfully, opening her front door. “Luckily, it’s Fenella who has the room next to mine.”

           

 

            “Bloody hell,” Claudia said rather feebly, forty-five minutes later, staring at her ceiling in mild disbelief and trying to catch her breath. “All right, then.”

 

            Lyle laughed into her pillow, then turned back onto his side and pulled her against him with one broad hand on her waist. He kissed her on the forehead, light and easy, and she giggled.

 

            “If you snore, you’re out of here,” she warned.

 

            “Nah,” Lyle said. “I can go, though.”  


            “You don’t have to,” Claudia said, sitting up in bed and removing her earrings from her ears and a large number of bobby pins from her hair. Lyle switched the bedside light on and fossicked around in the sheets for the rest, which had come loose when Lyle had pushed her onto her bed and got his hands into her hair, kissing her like he could undo her with a touch.

 

            Claudia thought she’d probably be finding bobby pins in her sheets for weeks, and – on balance – she didn’t care. Lyle was watching her in the light with his eyes half-closed, like she was some kind of work of art and he was a connoisseur.

 

            Claudia stared back. It made him grin.

 

            “I mean,” she continued, “you live fifteen minutes’ walk away. So it really depends on whether you’re on shift tomorrow or not, because if you’re not, you’ll probably want to go. I get up at seven.”

 

            “Fucking hell,” Lyle complained,  squinching his eyes shut. “Really?”

 

            Claudia got up and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. “Really.”

 

            “Ugh,” Lyle said, and dragged himself out of bed to dress.

 

            Claudia went to the bathroom, and he met her on her way out.

 

            “I’m off,” he said, soft and quiet, a shadow in his rumpled suit and tousled hair. “See you Friday, probably.”

 

            “Okay,” Claudia said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for the drink and the shag, it was fun.”

 

            “You’re not so bad yourself,” Lyle said nonchalantly. Claudia smacked him hard on the chest, and he snorted. “We could do it again some time. So long as we keep it casual.”

 

            “That can be rule one,” Claudia said, pleased. “Rule two is keep it quiet.”

 

            Lyle grinned, predatory in the half-light from the bathroom. “I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

           

            He slid his hand into her hair again and kissed her, and Claudia went to bed exceptionally pleased with herself.

 

***

 

            “I hope he was a good shag,” Amy complained, hollow-eyed over breakfast, and Claudia felt a twinge of guilt.

 

            “Excellent,” Claudia said sheepishly, bolting her orange juice. “Sorry, Ames.”

 

            “He left his bow tie on the floor outside your room,” Fenella said, dangling the object in question under Claudia’s nose. “I slipped on it this morning.”

 

            “Idiot!” Claudia said, seized it, and shoved it into her handbag. “Sorry, guys. We’ll be tidier next time.”

 

            “Is this a new boyfriend, then?” Amy demanded.

 

            Claudia sniggered involuntarily. “Oh my God! No.”

 

***

 

            She gave him back the bow tie when she visited his flat, since her boiler had burst and she needed a shower.

 

            “Stupid,” Lyle said casually, pocketing it. “Thanks for bringing it back. Want a drink?”

 

            “Love one, thanks,” Claudia said fervently, combing fingers through her greasy hair. “My _bloody_ landlord – never mind, just – where’s your bathroom?”

 

            Lyle pointed her in the correct direction, provided her with a large, fluffy towel, and brought her a glass of white wine while she was in the shower, having picked the lock to get in.

 

            Claudia got a mouthful of soapy water and spat it out. “Oh my God, Lyle.”

 

            “Can I join you?” he asked cheerfully, sitting down on the side of the tub.

 

            “Let me finish washing my hair first,” Claudia said, rinsing conditioner out of her hair. “And for future reference, when I lock a door, it means I don’t want you to come in.”

 

            “Oh.”

 

            “That was not your cue to leave,” Claudia said pointedly, and opened the shower door.

 

***

 

            “No offence,” Lyle said, kissing his way down her torso several weeks later, “but you calling me Lyle in bed is awkward.”  


            “Don’t stop,” Claudia said, tangling her hands in his hair and coming up short, fingers slipping on the dark strands. “Oh, you cut your hair again. Why?”

 

            “It was too long.” Lyle sucked a red mark onto her hipbone, then bit it.

 

            “Ow! Not as hard. No, I meant why did you – nngh, yes, that’s better – why is it weird, me calling you Lyle?”

 

            “Because you call me Lyle at work, that’s why, it keeps reminding me of you in bed.”

 

            “Oh. Fair,” Claudia said, distracted but still willing to see his point. He mostly called her Miss Brown at work, after all, like the other soldiers; it was one of the best bits about this, that he managed to behave exactly the same towards her as he’d always done. “What else do you want me to call you?”

 

            “Jon,” Lyle said, finally sliding that crucial few inches further down the bed and dipping his head between her legs. “But only when it’s just the two of us. Obviously.”

 

            “Sure,” Claudia said, draping one leg over his shoulder.

 

            Shortly thereafter, Lyle raised his head and remarked: “Wrong name.”

 

            “Oh my God, _sorry_ ,” Claudia snapped, exasperated, and pushed his head back down. “I’ll practise, all right?”

 

            He laughed, which made her writhe.

 

            “Get on with it!”

 

            “Not until you get it right!”

 

            “Fine, _Jon_ , for fuck’s _sake_ \- !”

 

***

 

            It was May when Claudia was faced with a serious issue.

 

            “Well, serious is pushing it a bit,” Fenella said reasonably, as Claudia slammed her laptop shut and let out a furious hiss. “I mean, it’s not a problem, it’s… you’ll just have to tell your cousin that you haven’t got a date.”

 

            “You don’t understand,” Claudia said, planting her face sadly on the fake pine of their Ikea table. “Amelia’s not exactly… she’s not hugely… Well, she gets very stressed out very easily, and if things aren’t exactly as she’s planned she gets cross. This wedding is not going exactly to plan, so she’s all nerves at the moment. I can’t believe Hugo’s going to his stupid _conference_ instead!”

 

            Well, the stupid conference was Davos, and he’d been invited as an aide, and it was probably a career-making moment – but still, Claudia felt hard done by, especially considering that her back-up date, Richard, had begged off claiming glandular fever, and her back-up after that, James, was at a stag party in Vienna next weekend. When the wedding was.

 

            “I don’t understand why you don’t just ask the fuck-buddy,” Amy said, sorting through her piles of paperwork on the floor.

 

            “He has a name,” Claudia said wearily. “And I’m not sure he’d go for it, to be honest.”

 

            “You spend enough time together,” Fenella pointed out.

 

            “We have a lot of sex,” Claudia explained. “That’s all, really.”

 

            “It’s weird,” Amy said frankly. “You used to be so – you know, you had a boyfriend, and then you were single for a while, and then you had another boyfriend. I didn’t think you were into casual sex.”  


            “I don’t have time for a relationship now,” Claudia said. “And Lyle’s really good in bed.”

 

            Fenella and Amy shared a look. “Yeah, we’d got that far,” Fenella said eventually, whisking up eggs for an omelette.

 

            “I have apologised _fourteen separate times_ –”

 

            “Just move your headboard away from the wall,” Amy said in tones of martyrdom, piling an inch-thick sheaf of papers into a folder. “And if you can’t ask Lyle, ask your other cousin, the hot archaeology one.”  


            “Alistair? It’s his sister getting married.” Claudia flipped a biro between her fingers. “His girlfriend’s moved here from America now, they’ll be going together. And Catalina is terrifying, stealing her date is right out.”

 

            “As it should be,” Fenella said, “so just get over yourself and ask Lyle.”

 

            “I don’t want to have to stop sleeping with him if he doesn’t like the idea, though,” Claudia said, leaning back in her chair with a sigh. “He’s even more invested in keeping it casual than I am.”

 

            “Put it this way,” Amy said. “From what we’ve heard, he really won’t want to stop sleeping with you either.”  


            “Oh my _God_ ,” Claudia exclaimed, feeling her cheeks burn.

 

            “For Pete’s sake, Claudia, there’s no point in being embarrassed!” Fenella said, and promptly set a tea-towel on fire.

 

            Claudia asked Lyle to come with her to the wedding.

 

***

 

            The wedding went as well as might be expected. Lyle agreed to come without blinking an eyelid, and even offered to pretend to be her boyfriend if she’d like; Claudia informed him that he would dislike that about as much as she would and declined, which made him laugh very hard. Amelia looked beautiful and serene, the church was pretty, the reception at Amarna House was a good party, and Claudia was able to convince her parents and sister that Lyle was only a friend from work, which was, in the strictest sense, true. Cousin Alistair, of course, saw right through her, but he always did, and he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it. Lyle managed to be friendly and charming, and spent a lot of time talking to Alistair’s girlfriend about her former career in bomb disposal, which had the felicitous effect of clearing most of Claudia’s gossipy relatives from the immediate vicinity. Catalina had a graphic way with words, and Lyle had never met an outrageous story he couldn’t top.

 

            “Remind me how you met a soldier at work, darling?” Claudia’s mother said casually, when they were both on the way to the loo.

 

            “Secondment to the MoD, Mum,” Claudia replied. “I told you about it at Christmas.”  


            “Oh,” Hero Brown said suspiciously.

 

            Catalina, exiting the loo ahead of them just in time to catch this exchange, turned a sceptical snort into a cough.

 

            “I do hope you’re not making yourself ill, Catalina dear,” Hero said. “That’s the trouble with PhDs, you have to pace yourself.”

 

            Catalina and Claudia met each other’s eyes in perfect understanding: Claudia understanding that Catalina knew very well Claudia’s job had little to do with the MoD, and Catalina understanding that discussing it was not on the cards.

 

            The wedding was only in Kent – hardly outside London at all – so Claudia and Lyle hadn’t been offered beds at Amarna House. Lyle drove them back, weaving through the semi-darkness of a late spring evening.

 

            “Your family’s nice,” he remarked.

 

            “They were on their best behaviour,” Claudia said. “You seemed to be getting on well with Catalina.”

 

            “We worked out we’d met before. Kabul, a few years ago.”

 

            “Don’t tell me you’ve slept with her as well,” Claudia joked, tucking her cardigan more firmly around her shoulders.

 

            Lyle snorted. “No. Pretty sure I’ve slept with some of your friends, but none of your relatives.”

 

            “Good,” Claudia said dryly. “I prefer not to keep it in the family.”

 

            He laughed. “Pretty dress, by the way.”

 

            “I thought you’d like it.” The dress in question, ivory heavily patterned with a black and raspberry flower print, had a fairly low neckline, a full skirt, and a waist defined by a broad sash the same pink as the flowers, and it fit her exactly. The key elements here, Claudia thought, were the fit. And the neckline. Lyle had definitely sneaked a few appreciative looks at it, which was going to ruin the idea of them as ‘friends from work’ if he wasn’t careful.

 

            “Looking at that zip,” Lyle persisted, changing lanes, “I could probably take it off with my teeth.”

 

            Claudia shifted in her seat and tried not to let her breath catch; Lyle liked flirting with her outrageously where other people couldn’t hear them, trying to get a reaction. One way or another he was always looking for a reaction, and Claudia often made a point of not giving him one. “You are not chewing the sash trying to get it off, it’s new.”

 

“Well, I could just not bother,” Lyle said. “I assume you’re not wearing Spandex, just ordinary knickers.”

 

Claudia got a dizzying mental flash of herself with her skirt hiked up above her hips, maybe sitting on the ridiculous granite counter in Lyle’s kitchen with her legs wrapped around his waist, but she’d been exchanging witty banter with Lyle for long enough that she didn’t even have to think about a deflating rejoinder. “For all you know, I could be on my period.”

 

“Definitely not. I keep a note.”

 

Of course, there was no guarantee the deflating rejoinder would work; it was Lyle, after all. Claudia threw a half-empty packet of humbugs at him, and he ducked away, laughing. “I take it that means you’re staying over tonight?” she snapped, trying to be cross when she wanted to smile.

 

            “Unless you don’t want me to. Or we could go to mine. Are your flatmates getting pissed off?”

 

            “Not really,” Claudia said, and remembered something. “You can come over to mine if you’re prepared to help me move the bed, they don’t like the way the headboard bangs into the wall.”

 

            “Deal,” Lyle said.

 

            They got home. Claudia went to the bathroom, since it had been a surprisingly long drive and she needed it, and Lyle moved the headboard.

 

            “No tights,” Lyle remarked when she got back.

 

            “Well spotted,” Claudia said.

 

            “Did you take your knickers off, too?” Lyle enquired.

 

            “Do I have to give you all the answers, lieutenant?” Claudia retorted, moving over to the mirror propped up against her wall and starting to remove the pins and clip in her hair. It fell loose around her face, soft and slightly crimped from the style, and she balanced on one foot to undo the ribbon that kept her wedge heel on the other foot.

 

            Lyle came up behind her, and set his hands on her waist. “Keep them on,” he suggested. “For the moment.”

 

            “They’re really high. My feet hurt.”

 

            “I’m not suggesting you walk on them,” Lyle said reasonably.

 

            Claudia laughed, and shifted her weight so she could stand up straight and lean back into him. “Thanks for coming today,” she said, and, when Lyle waggled his eyebrows at her in the mirror, clapped a hand hurriedly over his mouth. “Oh my God, no. I’m not sleeping with you for your sense of humour.”

 

***

 

            The next morning, there was a knock on Claudia’s door.

 

            “Go away,” Claudia yelled, rolling onto her back.

 

            “Move that headboard further from the wall,” Fenella yelled back.

 

            “Fine!” Claudia shouted.

 

            Lyle had evidently left in the middle of the night, as he sometimes did; it had never bothered her then, and it didn’t now. Claudia moved the headboard herself, after breakfast.

 

***

 

            “Is it true Lyle went to a wedding with you last weekend?” Abby asked, lounging against the wall next to the uncooperative photocopier Claudia was using.

 

            Claudia pushed several buttons, to no apparent avail. “Yes,” she said. “Family wedding. My date backed out on me at the last minute, and my cousin would have had hysterics if I’d turned up solo and left an empty place at a table.”

 

            “But… _Lyle_?” Abby said, clearly surprised. Claudia had to admit this was a reasonable response to the situation. “Are you two – you know –”

 

            “No, Abby,” Claudia sighed. “He’s a friend. That’s all. I might as well have asked Stephen, except he’s very bad at small talk, and if I’d asked Cutter, he’d have got ideas.”

 

            “True,” Abby conceded.

 

            There was a short pause, in which the photocopier emitted a number of sad beeps. Claudia slapped it, then opened the paper tray and closed it again with a bang. “Abby, is there a trick to this thing?”

 

            “Yeah,” Abby said. “Stand back.”

 

            Claudia stood back. Abby delivered a roundhouse kick that would have flattened any other piece of machinery, and the photocopier uttered a mechanical burp and began to whirr.

 

            “Thank you,” Claudia said fervently.

 

            “No problem,” Abby said.

 

            “How did you know Lyle came with me to the wedding?” Claudia asked, before Abby could go away. “It was a last minute thing. I don’t remember telling anyone.”

 

            Abby blinked. “I don’t know. It’s just going round the office. I heard it from Stephen.”

 

            “ _Great_ ,” Claudia sighed. “This is going to be fun.”

 

            Abby looked sympathetic; she had enough trouble, Claudia knew, dodging questions about the exact nature of the relationship between her, Stephen and Connor. “I’ll tell anyone who asks you’re just friends.”

 

            “Thanks, Abby,” Claudia said. She scooped up the copies, warm from the printer, and rescued the original from its glass straitjacket, apprehension burning between her ribs. She didn’t think she was going to enjoy her Monday.

 

***

 

            She got the text while she was on the bus home. _Who did you tell?_ it said.

 

            Claudia glowered at the screen of her phone. _Nobody. Why?_

 

            _I’ve been getting shit from the lads about it all day._

 

            Claudia had heard quite enough on the subject herself – possibly the last straw had been Lester catching her on her way out to buy a sandwich, and asking after her weekend and the wedding with a curiously sharp, meaning look in his eyes – but her temper was wearing her sympathy thin. _Who did /you/ tell?_ she wrote back.

 

            _Don’t be fucking childish_ , the ensuing text wrote. _Mario’s, 7.15_.

 

            Claudia took a deep breath and tried not to clench her fist around her phone. She went home, changed into jeans and a pink t-shirt she knew he thought didn’t suit her, and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, then walked the ten minutes down the road to the small café-restaurant that was equidistant between their two flats, resisting the temptation to kick small stones and trying not to scowl. If he thought she was being childish, she’d be twice the adult he was.

 

            Lyle was waiting for her outside, similarly dressed – though without the malice aforethought; he usually dressed to suit himself, even though he treated dress codes with a certain cavalier disregard – and frowning.

 

             Mario’s was full. They had to wait ten simmering minutes for a table, and the waitress was visibly disappointed when they only ordered coffee and biscotti.

 

            “I didn’t tell anyone,” Claudia said, the second she’d sat down. “And Fenella and Amy have been under orders not to tell anyone, and they certainly didn’t. As far as anyone at the wedding knows, you’re only a friend. Alistair and Catalina might suspect, but I promise you, they don’t _know_.”

 

            “I didn’t tell anyone either,” Lyle said, and frowned at her. “There must have been a leak somewhere.”

 

            “It wasn’t me,” Claudia said, annoyed. His frown made his face settle into disapproving lines she really didn’t like. “What exactly were people saying to you?”

 

            “They were teasing me about you,” Lyle said briefly. “About the two of us. You don’t want to know.”

 

            “I’m sure I don’t,” Claudia replied, her voice harsher than she liked. “But what I’m getting at here is – were they teasing you for going to a wedding with me, or were they teasing you for sleeping with me? Because the latter is a bigger problem than the former. I’ve already made it clear you came with me as a favour to a friend because I was out of other options.”

 

            Lyle’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. “Flattering.”

 

            “It was true,” Claudia said, and drowned her biscotti viciously in the cappuccino that arrived at her elbow. “I didn’t ask you while I had other options because you’ve always been so concerned about making absolutely sure everything looks _casual_.”

 

            “So have you,” Lyle pointed out.

 

            “Yes,” Claudia snapped, “but for _some reason_ , only one of us is capable of telling plausible lies of omission, and it isn’t you, Jon Lyle. Because you have to _relax_ for that kind of thing.”

 

            Lyle’s eyes sharpened, and his mouth flattened into a thin, hard line. “I told them you weren’t my type,” he said. “Too proper and boring. They believed me.”

 

            Claudia’s hand shook, and she set her cup down with a crack. “Fine. So what are we worrying about here?”

 

            “What we’re worrying about is that you have an information leak and you don’t know where it is.”

 

            “Why are you assuming it’s me?” Claudia exploded, louder than she meant to, and then controlled herself with an effort of will. She took another biscotti and bit into it.

 

            “Because I know it wasn’t me!”

 

            “Really,” Claudia hissed. “Really. Are you _always_ that careful?” She put the other half of her biscotti down on her saucer. “Who was the source of the gossip? Among your colleagues, not mine. Because I heard it from Abby, and she got it from Stephen. Stephen doesn’t talk to anyone at Marsham Street if he can help it, but he _does_ talk to your lot.”

 

            “Ditzy,” Lyle said. “I heard it from Ditzy first.”

 

            “There you have it,” Claudia said, draining her coffee. “When I called you to ask you to come to the wedding with me, whose house were you at? Ditzy’s.”

 

            “He couldn’t hear me,” Lyle said. “I made sure.”

 

            “ _Really_ ,” Claudia said, voice shaking. “You must have been _very_ sure. Sure enough to accuse me of either being completely unable of keeping a secret, or of being a liar.” She picked up her handbag and her remaining half-biscotti. “I’m really not very happy with this, Lyle, I need some time to cool off. Don’t come round on Friday.” She got up, and slapped a fiver down on the table for her half of the bill. “Oh, and try to remember – at work, we’re friends. If we really are going to keep this a secret, it needs to look like we haven’t rowed.”

 

            Lyle watched her all the way down the road. She could feel his stare between her shoulderblades.

 

***

 

            He didn’t talk to her at work the next day; Ryan was left to communicate with her.

 

            “What’s got into him?” Cutter said, staring at Lyle with unwonted perceptiveness.

 

            “I don’t know,” Claudia said. “Hangover?”

 

***

 

            Friday came and went twice, with no Lyle.

 

            “Um,” Amy said, cornering her on Sunday morning. “Not to be tactless, but I’ve slept through the night every night for two weeks. What happened to Lyle?”

 

            “Somebody told someone at work we went to a wedding together, and he threw a tantrum at the idea of people knowing we socialise outside work,” Claudia said bitterly, clattering pots and pans in the kitchen.

 

            Amy and Fenella shared a knowing look, and Amy took the pans from her hands while Fenella put away the breakfast things Claudia had taken out.

 

            “Okay, we’re going for brunch,” Fenella said. “And then we’re going to buy some ice-cream and watch at least one series of _Sex and the City_.”

 

            “I don’t need coddling,” Claudia snapped. “We didn’t break up. He wasn’t my _boyfriend_.”

 

            “No,” Amy said, “but on the other hand, he was evidently a colossal dickhead.”

 

            Quite against her will, Claudia laughed.

 

***

 

            On Wednesday, Lyle turned up at her front door with a work shirt and a hairbrush she’d forgotten at his flat. Fenella opened the door to him.

 

            “Are you here to apologise?” she demanded.

 

            “No,” Lyle said.

 

            “Fine,” Fenella said, deprived him of the shirt and hairbrush, and shut the door very hard.

 

            “You just slammed the door on a member of the SAS,” Claudia remarked, giggling despite herself.

 

            “Character-building,” Fenella said, without remorse. “I’m sure they’d agree with me, in Hereford.”

 

            Claudia thought of Ryan’s likely response to this statement, and laughed so hard she was almost sick.

 

***

 

            Thursday night was another pub night with the team, after a shattering encounter with a baby basilosaurus in a Slough swimming pool. Lyle conspicuously did not speak to Claudia.

 

            “What is his _problem_ ,” Abby said when she and Claudia went up to the bar to buy a round.

 

            “I know, right? God forbid we were friends outside work. I mean. _Women_. We might have _cooties_.” Claudia knew she spoke loudly enough to be heard at the team’s collection of tables, as Abby had done, and she really didn’t care.

 

            “Straight men are such delicate flowers,” Abby sighed, and ordered their drinks.

 

            “Amen, sister,” the Australian bartender said gravely, and issued high-fives all round and a complimentary white wine spritzer for Claudia.

 

            Lyle managed to catch her on her way out of the pub, nearly an hour later.

 

            “This is extremely subtle,” Claudia said, failing to suppress her sarcasm.

 

            “You could at least pretend we’re still friends.”

 

            “I tried,” Claudia said. “You made it first difficult, and then impossible, and now I really don’t care. I think I told you once that I don’t go for men whose first line of defence is a fit of the sulks.”

 

            “Uh,” said Lyle, clearly not remembering any such thing.

 

            Claudia rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t. I didn’t when it was Cutter, and I don’t now it’s you.” She peeled his hand off her arm, and wondered how the warm hands and firm grip she’d used to like so much just irritated her now. It was a powerful argument for finding a boyfriend with a good personality as well as a nice body; the latter obviously only went so far. “Go away, Lyle.”

 

            He did.

 

***

 

            Claudia was standing just outside the perimeter set up around the newly pteranodon-free hotel, trying to look calm and professional while injured, bloodstained and dressed in a cream silk camisole, when Lyle grabbed her shoulder. She almost tried to punch him.

 

            “Are you all right?” he demanded.

 

            “I’m fine,” she said, pushing his hand off. “A bit worse for wear, but fine.”

 

            “You don’t look it.”

 

            Claudia glanced down at herself. The world was now slightly more than fuzzy shapes; fine detail was beginning to return. She could see the blood on her trousers and top – oh, and that was going to be fun to explain to Amy and Fenella – and the scratches all down her arms, and she’d always been able to catch the scent of soot from the explosion on her own skin. “No. I don’t. I haven’t had a very good day, what with being, you know – concussed by a pterosaur, attacked by pteranodons, dragged around by Helen Cutter, and almost blown up.”

 

            “But you’re fine.”

 

            “Yes,” Claudia said. “I’m fine. No thanks to you, or indeed to anyone but Helen.”

 

            “That woman is fucking weird.”

 

            “No arguments here,” Claudia sighed. “Did you want something?”

 

            “Just wanted to know you were okay. Oh, and I got this for you.”

 

            He handed her a large cotton item, soft and black; Claudia shook it out and found it was a clean t-shirt, vastly over-sized for her, but probably about right for Lyle.

 

            “You’re wandering around in your underwear,” Lyle said, quite gently for him. “Not your usual style, Miss Brown.”

 

            “No-o,” Claudia said dryly, and pulled the offered shirt on. It was, obviously, much too big for her. “Is it clean?”

 

            “Yeah.”

 

            “Thanks, Lyle. Now if you don’t mind – I have to call Lester, and explain this… everything.”

 

            “Of course.” Lyle made to move away, and then hesitated. “Don’t get blown up or eaten by flying piranhas, Miss Brown, we’d miss you if you did.”

 

            “I’ll try, Lyle,” Claudia said, and let a little spark of warmth spread through her chest as she dialled Lester’s number and braced herself for a good deal of shouting.

 

***

 

            The text read _Mario’s, 7.15_ again, but this time it was ended by a question mark, and this time they stayed long enough to order dinner.

 

            “I was a fucking brat,” Lyle said, straightforward as always. “I’m sorry.”

 

            “Thank you,” Claudia said gracefully, after a small, slightly surprised pause. “You were pretty dreadful, and I wasn’t very nice either.”

 

            “No,” Lyle admitted. “But I deserved it.” He scrutinised the menu awkwardly, clearly trying too hard to be nice; he’d lost most of his ease in her company. “You like the vitello Milanese here, right?”

 

            “Well-remembered. Want to share a tiramisu afterwards? I can never get through a whole one by myself.” Claudia smiled at the waitress, who was the same one who’d served them during their argument and looked rather apprehensive, and ordered a glass of rosé and water for the table. Lyle asked for a beer.

 

            “Yeah, sure,” Lyle said, and added firmly, eyeing her with some wariness: “but I don’t think we should start sleeping together again.”

 

            “No,” Claudia said, having considered and definitively rejected this possibility. The waitress came back with two full glasses, two smaller empty ones and a jug of water, and laid them carefully down on the table.  “I agree with you there. But it was fun while it lasted.”

 

            “I’ll drink to that,” Lyle said, grinning with obvious relief.

 

            Claudia clinked her glass against his. “Cheers,” she said, and smiled.

 


End file.
